10:30am Choral Eucharist, Sunday, November 4th, 2018

ACNA Ancient Text, All Saints’ Sunday

Themes from the Readings: The Israelites enter into a covenant with God (imagery in the Eucharistic prayer draws from this passage);

Sermon on: Exodus 24:1-18

Other Themes: All Saint’s Day

Prelude: “With the Saints in Glory Shining”, By: Edward Broughton

Processional Hymn: 287 For all the saints, who from their labors rest (Sine Nomine)

Gloria: S208, Powell

First Reading: Exodus 24:1-18 or Exodus 31:12-18

Second Reading: Revelation 7:9-17

Gospel Hymn: 618 Ye watchers and ye holy ones (Lasst uns erfreuen)

Gospel: Mt. 5:1-12

Offertory Anthem: Give Us the Wings of Faith, By: Ernest Bullock

Choir: Give us the wings of faith to rise within the veil,

And see the Saints above, how great their joys,

How bright their glories be.

We ask them whence their victory came,

They, with one united breath,

Ascribe the conquest to the Lamb, their triumph to his death.

They mark’d the footsteps that he trod, His zeal inspir’d their breast;

And, following their incarnate God, they reach’d the promis’d rest.

Doxology: Hymn 380, stanza 3

Holy: S125, Proulx

Communion Anthem: For the Beauty of the Earth, By: John Rutter

Choir: For the beauty of the earth, for the beauty of the skies,

For the love which from our birth over and around us lies:

Lord of all, to thee we raise this our joyful hymn of praise.

For the beauty of each hour of the day and of the night,

Hill and vale and tree and flower, sun and moon and stars of light:

Lord of all, to thee we raise this our joyful hymn of praise.

For the joy of human love, brother, sister, parent, child,

Friends on earth and friends above, for all gentle thoughts and mild:

Lord of all, to thee we raise this our joyful hymn of praise.

For each perfect gift of thine to our race so freely given,

Graces human and divine, flow’rs of earth and buds of heav’n:

Lord of all, to thee we raise this our joyful hymn of praise.

Communion Meditation: “For All the Saints”, By: Jacob B. Weber, Canterbury Bells Handbell Choir

Processional Hymn: 527 Singing songs of expectation (Ton-y-Botel)

Postlude: “All Creatures of Our God and King” By: Hal H. Hopson

Music Notes

By: Ashley Sosis

Today’s hymns are #287 For all the saints, who from their labors rest, #618 Ye watchers and ye holy ones, and #527 Singing songs of expectation . Today’s Communion Anthem uses the text of #416 For the beauty of the earth.

“For all the saints,” written by William Walsham Howe (1823-1897), is based on the picture of a ‘cloud of witnesses” from Hebrews 12:1-2. The hymn gives thanks for the saints of old, makes a prayer that we may be found faithful, and acknowledges the unity of the whole church in heaven and on earth in the mystical body of Christ, a picture of the church in holy warfare, and a vision of the victorious Church.

“Ye watchers and ye holy ones,” was written by Athelstan Riley (1858-1945) who helped edit The English Hymnal (1906) and translated hymns from Latin and Greek. The first stanza names the nine orders of angels who praise God. The “bearer of the eternal Word in stanza 2 is the Virgin Mary. Stanza three ads in all the “souls in endless rest” who have arrived in heaven, and finally we are urged to join our voices in “supernal anthems” to the Holy Trinity. No one is exempt from singing!

“For the Beauty of the Earth,” is used widely in England as a children’s hymn, this text became a favorite for flower services in England. At these services, held on the afternoon of the fourth Sunday in Lent (“mothering Sunday”), children would present their mothers with bouquets of wildflowers picked the day before.

“Singing songs of expectation”, written for the Second Sunday in Advent, was written by Bernhard Severin Ingemann in 1825, first appearing in his Hoimesse Psalmer (High-Mass Hymns). A translation by Sabine Baring-Gould’s was published in The People’s Hymnal in 1867 . One stanza of the original hymn did not make it into the hymnal 1982:

“Onward therefore, pilgrim brothers,

onward with the Cross our aid!

Bear its shame, and fight its battle,

till we rest beneath its shade.

Soon shall come the great awaking,

soon the rending of the tomb;

then the scattering of all shadows,

and the end of toil and gloom.”